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by Bruce Maulden

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‘Turbulence’ Aloft

September 13, 2016

Thick fog this early Tuesday on California’s north coast, maybe the most-dense in awhile.

Meanwhile, the plot continues — from Climate Central yesterday: ‘In what has become a common refrain this year, last month ranked as the hottest August on record, according to NASA data released Monday. Not only that, but the month tied July as the hottest month the world has seen in the last 136 years.’

Not only is this two super-hot months in a row, but actually now it’s 11 ‘straight‘ months that temperatures have shattered global records. August had a global average surface temperature of about 1.76 degrees Fahrenheit above average — this shit is getting more real nearly by the day. And in the short run, bad news. Via HuffPost this morning:

“While there may be a tendency to be complacent about the recurring record temperatures, with each month come more climate-related consequences that cannot be ignored,” wrote UCS climate scientist Astrid Caldas in a blog post. Climate change is not a future problem, but rather one that we are actively dealing with. “We are feeling climate change impacts right here, right now,” Caldas continued. From wildfires and droughts to devastating floods, climate change fingerprint is all around us and does play a role in making events more extreme. An example are this summer’s floods in Louisiana, caused by intense rains which were “at least 40 percent more likely to happen because of climate change,” according to research.

All this rising heat is also having an effect upon a lot of diverse shit, including one that’s been in the news lately — weird, hot winds are impacting the rise of severe air turbulence felt by air flight. In the US alone there about 58 injuries a year due to it, and incidents occurring on a routine basis. A product of climate change. Via the UK’s Telegraph, also yesterday:

On the face of it, incidents like these might seem to have little to do with climate change, but scientists say these narratives are intrinsically linked. “When we think of global warming we’re usually thinking about the fact that it’s getting warmer at ground level, but in fact the temperatures are changing higher up in the atmosphere including where planes fly at 35,000ft,” said Dr Paul Williams, an atmospheric scientist at the University of Reading. “The atmospheric winds and temperatures up there are very strongly tied together and therefore the winds are changing in response to the temperature temperatures. “As the climate changes the odds of encountering turbulence on your flight are increasing.” … “Our study finds that the jet stream winds along the flight route between London and New York are getting stronger because of climate change – they are getting 15 per cent stronger in winter,” he said. “This increase in the jet stream winds is going to have an impact on people’s flights.”

In a related item, Randall Munroe posted an XKCD comic on Monday that so perfectly sums up the illogical nature of climate-change denial — really, take a look at it, lays out the whole situation A heads-up on the chart from the Washington Post yesterday:

Yes, Earth’s climate has waffled around for as long as the planet has existed. But it has happened slowly over the course of millennia. Right now, our climate is changing faster than it ever has in 22,000 years, and we know why: we’re pumping carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas into the atmosphere. We have known that these gases cause warming since the early 19th century. This is not a new science. But for some reason we’re still arguing about it.